By Adam Ali.
Benghazi, 7 April 2015:
Fighting in Benghazi has thrown up new challenges for Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC) and the city’s . . .[restrict]medics, including a morgue overflowing with decomposing bodies.
Members of BMC’s Infection Control Office, BMC officials, health specialists and a number of individuals interested in the field of public health have attended a seminar aimed at finding a solution to the problems confronting BMC as more corpses arrive than the hospital’s morgue is able to process.
The armed clashes have resulted in many deaths. Because the clashes have also resulted in the closure all but two hospitals in the city, all bodies are being taken to BMC for autopsy and processing.
According to BMC Director of Infection Control Dr. Rima Bokmar, the hospital’s morgue has been unprepared, since 2011, to deal with the number of bodies while providing room for the public prosecutor to do his work investigating suspicious deaths.
At the moment BMC has two morgue refrigerators that, when working normally, can store corpses for up to one year. However, since 2010, the refrigerators have not been working properly. Currently BMC’s morgue refrigerators are not able to properly keep more than six bodies stored.
The result is that BMC is holding a number of decomposing corpses. These are a significant source of bacteria and microbes that could cause infection, posing a threat to both the workers in the morgue and the patients in the hospital. Of particular concern are patients in intensive care and the neonatal unit.
Those working in the morgue, for their part, are being given preventative vaccinations.
BMC’s Safety Department is studying how to minimize the risks. Safety Department official Jaballah Masour stressed the need to expand the number of refrigerators in the morgue and repair the one that is not working. Collection of DNA samples and other forensics should be done more quickly, he said, so that bodies could be released for burial faster.
Mansour also suggested that the morgue face the fact that in its current condition it cannot accept any more unidentified bodies because the hospital is already facing a public health risk . Instead, the city must work to get the morgue in Jalaa Hospital opened.
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